


Family by Choice

by darthneko



Series: Handfuls of Dreams [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adopted Children, Fantasy, Gen, M/M, Magic-Users, Past Child Abuse, ex-military
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vász thought he was officially retired from the Reine ranks, exiled back to civilian life, half crippled and mentally blind. He didn't count on shadows of his life following him, in the form of a family he didn't expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome Home

Zentraleüropaisch Reich, Ungarn Provinz, Kaiserlich Jahr 314  
(Central European Reich, Hungarian Province, Imperial Year 314)

The train pulled into the Monor station at half past two in the afternoon, disgorging passengers, mail parcels, and freight alike in a minor riot of chaos and voices punctuated by the deep bellowing hiss of the engine. Kalmenka, stepping down to the wooden platform with his field pack slung heavy against one shoulder, blinked out into the pale spring sunshine and tried to pull his scattered thoughts together. It had been two hours before dawn when he'd boarded the car - first class, half empty and more than comfortable enough to sleep in, which he had. Now, over nine hundred kilometers and more than half a day later, he was waking to realize he'd slept through the breakfast and dinner hours both and could still feel it dragging at his heels, thick as trench mud, as he made an effort to shake himself alert.

Someone brushing past him with a muttered apology made him start, heart leaping unsteadily in surprise. He'd lost a few moments, blanketed in the light and the noise of the station platform, half asleep on his feet. Taking a deep breath, he hitched his pack higher and fished in the pocket of his coat for the baggage ticket he half remembered stuffing there, kicking himself into motion.

One of the ubiquitous black capped porters had just dumped his locker at his feet when someone shouted his name and he turned, squinting against the sun, to spot the familiar face and broad shoulders of his brother-in-law. He waved and turned back to the porter, spilled a mis-matched handful of coins into the man's hand which earned him a bright grin - "Danke sehr, mein Herr!" - and the sloppy mimic of a salute which he returned by habit before the man bustled away. 

It caught him as he was slipping the rest of the coins back into his pocket, gesture and habit so automatic as he tallied up the coins he had left that he didn't even think of it until it blindsided him, washing the next few moments away in a bright stab of pain. András was there when he could refocus, solid and sturdy as he'd ever been, steadying Kalmenka with a hand wrapped around his upper arm and a worried frown. "You all right?" he asked, gruffly.

"I'm fine," Kalmenka managed, willing the moment to pass and the spike of pain to subside. He blinked, hard, trying to clear white hot sparks from his vision. "I'm fine, I'm all right."

His brother-in-law huffed. "You look like shit," he remarked bluntly, but he let go gingerly, hands not quite hovering in easy reach. "Did you get some sleep, at least?"

"Plenty," Kalmenka replied. He rubbed at his eyes and breathed out a tentative breath of relief as the pain eased. "Slept most of the way here." 

András nodded and waved Kalmenka back with a short gesture, bending to scoop up the battered steel footlocker which, between itself and the worn pack slung on his shoulder, encompassed a depressingly large portion of Kalmenka's life. "Had dinner on the car?"

Kalmenka shook his head, bemused. The questions were so _normal_ , so very far from the barked snap and reply of the ranks, that he had trouble tracking them as pertaining to himself. "Slept through it." His stomach, as though it knew very well it was under discussion, chose that moment to remind him audibly of the full truth. He half shrugged, grinning sheepishly under András' renewed frown. "Breakfast too."

The other man snorted. "And they say _you're_ the smart one," he noted dourly. "Come on. Wagon's by the grocer, they're loading supplies. We've got time; there's a kitchen up the street, makes a good soup. We can get you a bite to eat there."

It sometimes seemed the little city grew larger between every time he visited; even in the short intervening months from his last leave there were new shops sprung up like spring buds and more bustle of traffic, foot and motorcar both, in the streets around the train station. The little meal kitchen András lead him to was new to him, and the weather mild enough that it had put out a couple of small bench tables onto the cobblestone walk. His brother-in-law all but shoved him into one, dumping the locker at their feet, and waved down the serving girl who poked her head out of the door to get them food.

She came back in record time, tray laden with full bowls of thick meat stew, heavy mugs of beer and a board of dark bread, still warm. The scents knocked some of the hazy fugue from Kalmanka's head; he had inhaled half of the bowl and three thick slices of bread before he realized that the other man was doing more watching of him than eating his own portion, a small frown still tugging at his dark brows. "Sorry," Kalmenka said, gesturing to the food with his spoon. "Didn't realize I was that gone."

András waved the apology away. "You always were nothing but cord and bone," he noted, "and then they keep running even _that_ off you." He pushed the remainder of the loaf of bread across the center of the little table. "Take it. I bring you back half starved and Zsófia'll have both our heads."

Kalmenka smiled ruefully, acknowledging it for truth; his sister managed her husband in much the same way she'd been managing her older brother since she was small and there were some fights not worth the fighting. He polished off the rest of his food at a slightly more polite pace, and didn't protest when András matter-of-factly tipped the remainder of his own half eaten bowl into Kalmenka's with the enjoinder to finish it off. In return, when the soup was nothing but a memory warming his stomach and the last of the beer had been polished off with a satisfied sigh, Kalmenka waved András off in turn and pulled his own wallet from his pocket.

It caught him before he could even open the leather, forcing him to steady himself against the edge of the table and to slap the wallet down against the surface before he could fumble and drop it. When the first wave passed and he could open his eyes again, squinting against the light, András was frowning harder, the other man a knot of tight tension across the table. "Kalmenka?"

"I'm all right," Kalmenka repeated, numbly, because there wasn't anything else to be said, not in the middle of a public street. Letting out his breath, he gingerly pushed the wallet across the table. "Here. You know how much it is..."

András shook his head, shoving the wallet back into his grasp. "That'd be a fine way to welcome you home," he scolded. "Keep your Marks." There was no way to really argue with that; Kalmenka sighed and put his money away, letting András settle the bill. By the time it was done and they were ready to move on he found he could stand up without stumbling, feet steady and pack no heavier than it ought to be.

The grocer András favored was finished packing by the time they arrived, supplies stored neat in box and barrel in the bed of András' wagon. Kalmenka threw his own things in with them, locker nestled secure in one corner, pack thrown on top, and climbed up to sit on the raised seat while András thanked the grocer and checked over his team of horses. Everything settled, the other man climbed up beside him and gathered up the reins, clucking the horses into motion with a flick of his wrist. 

"Could've just picked stuff up in Bénye," Kalmenka noted, bracing his feet against the edge of the footboard. "Not carried it all the way from here."

András shrugged. "No sense wasting a good trip to town. Better selection here than Bénye stocks." He glanced at Kalmenka sidelong. "It'll be about two hours, you want to put your head down."

"I'll be fine," Kalmenka replied, but it sounded thin even to his own ears.

The congested streets near the town center gave way to quiet residential streets and then to open road that cut northeast through farm and forest towards the village of Gomba, and the even tinier collection of houses and roads that was Bénye beyond that. The Kocsis farm that András owned was out further still, all the land they could want cut from the woods around, and if he'd once had his doubts about his sister's decision to marry into a landed family they were long laid to rest; András' folk were good people. 

András himself, never much of one to waste words, kept his eyes on his team and his hands on the reins and let Kalmenka settle into the seat and the sway of the wagon. It wasn't until they had passed the outer limits of Monor and were on the road, farm land and grassy hills stretched to either side, nothing but the buzz of insects, the creak of the wagon wheels, and the clop of the horses' hooves on the hard packed dirt, that he spoke up again. "You going to tell me what's wrong?"

Kalmenka sighed, hunching into his coat. It had been bound to come up, and only András' temperament, mild and solid as smooth worn stone, had left it until they had some peace and quiet. The other man, eyeing him sidelong, shrugged with one shoulder. "You tell me now," he noted, "and I'll talk to Zsófia. Or you can. Up to you."

"That's a foul blow," Kalmenka answered sourly. His sister, always so glad to have him visit, wasn't going to take any negative news very well at all. András let the comment pass, lapsing into silence, and after another few minutes of quiet road passing by Kalmenka sighed again, tipping his head back to look up at the thin scattering of wispy clouds overhead. "They decommissioned me."

His brother-in-law made a noncommittal sound. "So you wrote," he said. "And we're glad for it. You've served enough terms already."

"It's not..." Kalmenka made himself stop and take a deeper breath, relaxing the muscles in his shoulders. "It's not that easy. It's not just signing a few papers. Not for Reine."

András said nothing, waiting, and Kalmenka found the next breath was a little easier for the other man's quiet patience. "Reine aren't just Mathematikers. We're weapons. It's not like working for a pharmacy or in a refinery. We _are_ the guns on the front, and when we opt out... They can't just let us go on home, no more than they'd let someone take home heavy munitions to show the family. Somebody'd get hurt."

His brother-in-law was frowning. "But... It's not something you're carrying. It's..." He shrugged, hand that was free of the reins spreading to indicate he didn't know the right words, and tapped one finger against his own temple. "It's all up here, isn't it?"

"Ja," Kalmenka replied, letting his breath out slow. "Ja, and that's where they stop it." His hands, he found, were clenched in his pockets, and he made himself let them go. "Make it so you can't think the numbers any more. Not even a little bit. Feels like someone's driving a knife through my skull when I try." He laughed, short and sharp, the sound ugly. "It'll get better, they said. Give it a month, maybe two, it'll get better. I'll... I'll be able to do _normal_ stuff. Total a bill, balance my bank book, that sort of thing." He shrugged helplessly. "It's already better than it was. Don't get the nosebleeds any more unless I'm a damned fool about pushing it."

András let out a huff of breath. He was looking at the road, not at Kalmenka, and the other man was glad for it. "Luck bless. And then they just... Send you on home."

"Ja," Kalmenka echoed. "Here's your pension, have a good life."

His brother-in-law nodded slowly. "Worth it?"

"I hope so," Kalmenka replied quietly. "Tell you truth, András, I don't know what to do now. I've been in the ranks since I was eighteen. Seems a lifetime ago."

Another stretch of road passed by quietly. "You'll manage," András said at length. Reaching over, he clapped a hand on Kalmenka's shoulder. "You're good like that. And it's nothing you've got to decide right now. Like I said, we're glad to have you. Welcome home."

Kalmenka managed a shaky smile in return. "Danke." Giving himself a small shake, he settled a little lower in the seat. "I... Maybe I will close my eyes. Just for a bit."

"Do that," András agreed. "I'll wake you when we get there. I'll have a word with Zsófi too. You just rest."

Kalmenka tucked his head down, setting his back firmer against the back of the seat. He'd forgotten what it felt like, the warmth of family compared to comrades in arms. Closing his eyes, he let the sway of the seat and the soft creak of the wheels soak away the empty pain inside.


	2. On Leave

Beraven, I.J. 314, southeast of Budapest, Ungarn Province

There was a brass bell over the shop door that chimed with a flat, metallic sound when it was struck, bobbing wildly on its wire. Vász raised his voice in his best field sergeant tone, cutting over bell and the babble of voices alike. “Alright, babák, you get one treat each! One thing, you hear me? And no running!”

But it was far too late for that. They pushed past him in a rush of pattering feet and high childish voices raised in glee, already exclaiming over the things on display as they scattered through the store, leaving him with only the youngest, his infant niece dozing contentedly in a sling against his hip, and the oldest, who was looking at him with something like horror.

“It’s tradition,” Vász explained. “We come into town, do the shopping, and they all get a treat in exchange for helping carry things home.” He nudged the boy into the store and let the door fall shut behind them, bell clanging again.

“Sugar.” Mattias pronounced the word like it might be poisonous, looking around the bright yellow papered walls of the little bakery with dismay. “You’re letting them have sugar.”

Vász grinned, shrugging. “Ja. Doesn’t do any harm, and they’ll run it off by the time we get home. Gets me willing helpers to load up. What?” He cocked his head curiously. “Didn’t you ever have an Onkel or someone bribe you with treats when you were little?”

The younger man didn’t answer, stepping like a skittish colt around a display of honey drenched sticky buns and Vász’s nephew and niece who were eyeing them wide eyed. “Sugar,” he said again, his tone summing up just how insane he thought Vász was in a two forboding syllables.

“Relax, Feldwebel,” Vász chuckled. “I’ve been doing this awhile, it turns out alright in the end.” Turning away, he broke into a wide grin. “Ai, Jola! Miss me, Fraulein?”

The woman behind the counter was a little younger than Vász was, her fine brown hair coiled demurely at her neck beneath a plain white kerchief and the starched swath of her apron tied high across the prominent swell of her very round belly. She shook her head, dusting off floured hands in puffs of milky white. “Only you, Herr Leutnant. Hush that mouth, or I’ll call my husband.”

“Ah, Jola, I’m heartbroken,” Vász mock exclaimed, and she leaned across the counter to leave patted streaks of white flour against his cheek, both of them grinning. He leaned his free arm against the counter, hitching the sleeping Ade into a better position, and eyed Jola critically. “Another month?”

“Two,” Jola groaned, pressing her hands to her belly. “And a fine, big, restless boy he is, too. I’ll be just as glad to have him in my arms - at least then his Apa can carry him for awhile!”

Vász shook his head. “Now you’ve said that it’s going to be a girl, just you watch,” he warned, shaking a chiding finger.

“Don’t I wish,” she retorted sharply. “After four boys I’ve given up hope. But honestly, Kalmenka, don’t you have any manners? Who’s your friend?” The smile she turned on Mattias was bright and cheerful, and undiminished by his failure to return it.

“Yes, sorry,” Vász said hastily. A hand in the small of the boy’s back pushed Mattias an unwilling step closer and earned him a sour glare before the younger man smoothed his expression over, stiffly reaching for the hand Jola extended to him. “Mate of mine, visiting on leave. Feldwebel Mattias Ulrich, may I present Dame Horváth Jola, wife of our fine baker and the maker of the very best pies you’ll find anywhere, though you’re under oath not to tell Sófi I said so. Jola, this is Mattias. He’s been stationed with me for the last year.”

They clasped hands, Mattias mumbling something polite before rescuing his hand and stepping back as quickly as possible. Vász bit his tongue to avoid mentioning the bright flags of color that were creeping across the boy’s cheeks and Jola, with a sympathetic look, quickly turned her attention back to Vász to let the younger man escape. From there it was all gossip, family news traded with quick familiarity, and Jola reaching eagerly to take the still sleeping Ade when Vász offered, cooing over the little girl with delight. Vász kept half an ear on his charges, interrupting the conversation a dozen times to either bark at one of them from across the store or else answer a question that was delivered in a breathless rush, usually from waist high with small hands grasping urgently at his jacket to tug for attention. From the corner of his eye he watched Mattias uncoil in measured stages, until the younger man was composed again and leaning against the counter as he surveyed the glass jars full of hard candies on the shelf behind the counter, his brows drawn down in the dubious frown that had become his habitual expression since he had stepped off the train into the quiet town to meet Vász’s sister’s family.

One by one the children trickled back up to the counter, waving whatever bun or cookie or pastry they had settled on. Two of the girls tugged on Vász’s hand, clamoring for the sugar sticks behind the counter, and Jola reluctantly handed Ade back and fetched the jar down, giving a pink and green swirled stick to each girl. “Your usual?” she asked Vász and he nodded, getting his niece settled back against his hip.

“Bitte. You think this lot is bad, you should see the boys back home. Full grown men and twice the noise! Oh, and Zsófia asked for some of those mints she likes.” He leaned on the counter, watching as Jola bustled from jar to jar, quick hands dipping into each to create a multicolored pile of sweets on the tabletop. “And a weight of the fudge, bitte, and...” he glanced sideways, followed a line of sight, and jerked his chin, “some extra of those, two jars to your right.”

If Mattias’ face had been disapproving before it was three types of horrified as the pile of sugary treats grew into a mound and the whole lot of it was swept up, neatly packaged in crisp folded packs and tied with twine. “What’s all that for?”

“Trade,” Vász replied, counting out folded Marks onto the countertop as Jola bagged the packages up. “Beer and smokes cost the same down here as they do up north, but sweets I can get cheap. Packs up easier, stores indefinately, and you’d be surprised what some guy’s will trade for a honey toffee when all they’ve got is fags.”

Mattias blinked, mouth forming a soundless “oh” for a moment. He took the bag Vász handed him without complaint and with a last farewell to Jola they trooped back out again, the collected children in an endless motion swirl around Vász.

Once outside he scattered them again, sticky hands and faces all, to run up and down the street looking in the shop windows. “Gets the first bit out of their system,” he confidied to Mattias, “and we’ve got another twenty minutes before they’ll be ready to load up at the store.”

They found one of the benches along the street, tucked beneath a young tree that offered scant shelter from the wind but didn’t cut into the weak spring sunlight either. Vász sat with a sigh, feet kicked out in front of him, and rolled Ade to his lap where she hiccuped and promptly fell asleep again, sucking on her fingers. Fishing into the bags, Vász rummaged around through the packages until he found the loose sack of mints and paper wrapped chunks of fudge. “Here,” he said, handing a strip of paper to Mattias. “What are they, anyways?”

Startled, Mattias blinked at the waxpaper with its multicolored button drops of treats. “You bought it.”

“Because you were looking at them,” Vász replied, unconcerned. “Everyone gets a treat. That’s the rule. You didn’t think I got that fudge for Sófi, did you?” He grinned, sharing the joke, though Mattias looked unconvinced. “So what are they?”

“Just candy drops,” the boy said, but the shrug of his shoulders didn’t quite make it to his voice, which cracked over the last word. He cleared his throat, cheeks flushing again. “It’s just sugar and dye.”

“Yeah?” Vász reached over, liberating one of the drops from the waxed paper, and popped it into his mouth. It crunched easily, a burst of pure sugar sweet, crumbling and dissolving all at once. It left a smear of green residue against his skin that he sucked off. “Huh.”

“You’re not doing it right.” The words tumbled out seemingly half against Mattias’ will, bitten off behind thin pressed lips, but once said he couldn’t take them back.

“Na?” Vász shrugged, holding out the strip of paper. “Tastes about right, if you like your sugar straight up. Show me?”

The boy looked badly in need of sugar in Vász’s opinion, freckled face pinched as though he had bitten into something sour beneath the disapproving wedge of his frown. But he took the paper Vász handed him, running fingertips along the edge of the waxed sheet, and then, with an inaudible sigh, seemed to shake himself. He tugged off one woolen glove with his teeth to bare his hand, thin fingertips pinked from the cold. Licking the back of his knuckle, he easily transfered one of the dots to it. The sugar drop clung, bright blue amid the spattering of brownish freckles that dotted Mattias’ exposed skin, and he held it out like some cross between a challenge and a girl displaying a prized bauble. “Now take it.”

However, when Vász would have reached for it Mattias swatted his hand back irritably. “Not like that. You can’t just grab it. You have to make it stick to you.”

Vász’s eyebrows were climbing upwards but he gamely licked one fingertip and reached out to slide the dot from Mattias’ hand. It was, he quickly found, harder to do than it sounded - the sugar dot’s flat bottom was wet and stuck quite neatly to the boy’s skin, while the candy drop rounded top afforded less graspable surface to stick to his own finger. After a few aborted tries that only succeeded in pushing the dot around in a growing blue smear Vász was ready to bet that Mattias might be having one over on him. A sidelong look almost confirmed it, but on the other hand… well. On the other hand, that tiny ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of the boy’s mouth was the first time he’d relaxed in days, and more than worth some foolishness with a bit of sugar in Vász’s opinion.

After another lick at his now blue stained fingertip and a move that combined pressing with twisting so that the dot slid right off the licked portion of Mattias’ hand and onto dry skin, Vász managed to get it precariously stuck to his own finger and claimed it with a flourish that promptly lost the half dissolved dot into the mud at their feet. Mattias bit back a muffled sound that might very well have been a laugh and Vász tugged the paper strip away from him. “Let’s see you do it, then,” he challenged, and after only a tiny bit of fumbling peeled another dot from the paper, bright buttercup yellow this time, and stuck it with a lick to the back of his own hand.

The tiny smile shed years from Mattias’ face, leaving him as fresh cheeked as either of Vász nephews and Vász could only too well imagine the havoc the boy’s befreckled cheeks and cropped hint of copper bright curls must have wrecked on any sensible mother. Mattias licked the next knuckle over from the already blue stained one and pressed the backs of their hands together, deftly lifting the yellow drop away with a practiced twist and bringing it immediately up to eat, the drop disappearing between his teeth before he held his hand out to display. “See? Colors.”

There were indeed; the yellow had left a smear across Mattias’ knuckle, and where it bled into the blue there was a smudge of green. Vász’s own hand was in similar shape, and he glanced down at the strip of sugar dots; yellow, red, orange, green and blue. He bit back a laugh of his own, only all too vividly able to imagine the other soldier as a round cheeked boy with a mop of curls and a rainbow of sticky sweet colors smeared over little boy hands and arms. “Oh, your mama must have loved that,” he chuckled. “So who taught you how to do it?”

The smile faltered, fading, and Mattias reached out to peel one of the red dots from the waxed paper, rolling it in crumbling smears between his fingertips as he looked away. “My brother. He and I… we used to eat them like that.”

“Ah?” It was the first time Vász could ever remember the boy voluntarily mentioning his family and against his better judgement curiosity pushed words onto his lips. “Younger or older?”

Mattias’ smile was long gone, his lips pressed thin once more, and he wouldn’t look at the older man. “Younger. I… I’m the oldest.”

“Nah,” Vász said, making his tone light, “then we’ve that in common even if Zsóphia swears she doesn’t know where Mother found me half the time.” It was stilted talking to the boy, something probably better dropped, but it was no more or less than he’d asked - or answered - from any of the men. “Where is he? Back home in school?”

The sugar dot broke, tiny crumbled fragments of crystallized red raining down across the mud from Mattias’ fingertips. The boy pulled into himself with all the abruptness of a door slammed shut, back rigid, shoulders hunched, and Vász cursed himself for a fool. “No,” Mattias said, voice low, and then, before Vász could tell him it didn’t matter, he shouldn’t have asked and the boy didn’t have to answer, he continued, words tight. “There’s no home.”

Pieznich. It was in the boy’s records, place of birth, some tiny village in the Polen province that Vász had never heard of, and far far north from where the eastern lines stretched. Not the war, then, and Vász chewed on the inside of his lip before opening his mouth again. “Mattias… I’m sorry. What happened? You don’t… you can tell me off, Röt, it’s none of my business, but…”

Mattias shook his head sharply and Vász shut up, subject closed. But the boy was talking, words falling heavily, red smeared fingers leaving pink smudges over the wool of his gloved hand where he clasped them together. “M… Mama died when we were little. And then Papa… he was Forschung. They called him to the Front, something about his research… the train was lost. He never came back.”

There were troop manners and family manners, things you did or didn’t do to both, but Vász had been almost a week in the tumultuous close-quarters of family and it was that, he reasoned, that made him reach out without considering first to rub a hand over the boy’s shoulder. “Ah, Junge. I’m sorry. I am. There’s no easy way for it to happen, no matter how old you are.” The shoulder under his hand was wire tight, the boy’s tight pinched face turned away, but his knuckles were white with more than cold and he didn’t move away. Vász rubbed the thin shoulder, awkwardly trying to turn the conversation around. “So they sent you off… where? Grandparents, Aunt, Uncle…?” But the boy was shaking his head sharply with each word and Vász hugged the sleeping weight of his youngest niece closer, hoping against the answer before it ground flatly from Mattias’ lips.

“No. Nowhere.”

They weren’t Cigány, he reminded himself. A Cigány child always had family, always had kin, someone no matter how distant to turn to. But whatever the Ulrichs had been they were not his family, not his people, and non-Cigány did things that made no sense all the time. It was the first rule. He’d seen it more times than he could count and he could make a guess to the rest of the story, anywhere from State Services to the streets, and had witnessed first hand the different shades of stone it turned children into.

Words were raw and ugly, fallen broken from Mattias’ throat in flat, distant sounds like a ruined cadence of official report. “Levi… my brother… he was sick. A cough. I couldn’t… Papa could have… it was there, in his notes. I _tried_ …”

It painted itself as starkly against Vász’s closed eyes as the earlier image of multi-hued childhood, a half grown boy pouring hopelessly over indecipherable medical equations of a lost Forschung father. “I’m sorry,” he repeated softly. “I’m so sorry, Junge. I’m sorry.”

Mattias’ face twisted, his breath catching raggedly, but his tightly closed eyes were dry. Vász could feel the tremor in him under his hand, but the boy neither said anything else or let the tears fall and breath by shaken breath he pulled himself back together, rigid rank and composure reassembled into a thin shell that let him sit upright. He wiped a hand across a dry, chilled face and squared his shoulders, his eyes sliding flatly away from the older man beside him. “Doesn’t matter.”

Vász could think of a handful of retorts but discarded most of them, chased off by the rigid stiffness of the shoulder under his grasp. “Maybe… maybe not,” he offered quietly, and with a last squeeze let go. The boy was brittle - he knew it, had known it, but knowing the why of it made it, if anything, a little easier to give him the dignity he clung to so desperately. “But if it ever _does_ matter… well, I think I can safely speak for Zsóphia when I say you’ve got a home if you ever need it.” Scooping Ade up, he lifted her limp, dozing weight to his shoulder and pushed himself to his feet. “Come on. On your feet, Feldwebel. We’d better go round up the troops.”

When he glanced back Mattias was still on the bench. The boy’s cheeks and the tip of his nose were turning red in the cold, his eyes both too bright and too barricaded by half. “You don’t mean that,” he said flatly.

Vász tipped his head. “There’s this thing you’ll learn about Cigány, Röt - we almost always mean what we say. Least,” he flashed a grin, the kind that their Oberst hated, “we do on the important things.” He kicked out a lazy foot, knocking his boot against Mattias’ ankle. “Come on. I hope you know how to herd chicken; herding Kinder into loading up a wagon is sort of similar.”


	3. Small Comfort

The sofa in the main room of Zsófia's house was newer than some, but aged more than most from the relentless erosion of Kinder, cats and dogs, all of which had left their marks in muddy prints, worn upholstery, fur and stains. It wasn't _dirty_ \- Luck knows his oldest sister wouldn't stand for dirt in her house and her whole family knew it - but it was worn, well used and a far cry from new, and this made it perfectly at home in the organized chaos of the main family room. 

It was certainly not the first time it'd been the afternoon resting place of a tired or sick Kind and the cushions had only turned mushily softer with age, the whole sofa placed such that it sat, half the day, in the path of the sunlight that fell through the gauzy curtains, weak and winter white as it may be. So Kalmenka put the boy there and this was nothing new to the family, every member of them from youngest to oldest had lain there during bouts of illness in that awkward stage between sick enough to stay in bed and well enough to be up and about. There was a sick Kind snoozing on the sofa, wrapped in an old oversized night shirt and a mound of blankets, and after a few times of being hushed the other little ones caught the altered rhythm of the day and the play turned quieter, the side of the room with the sofa treated with more restraint. 

Kalmenka settled into one of the equally worn chairs, close enough to watch and listen as the boy slept. Zsófia, ever practicle, brought him a mug of coffee; and when he was half done with it and she judged he'd been sitting idle long enough, two bowls, one full of fresh washed potatos, the other empty with a paring knife clattering quietly in its depths. "I left the army to get away from this," he joked, but he took the bowls readily enough, hands eager to have a task.

"Silly man," his sister said, ruffling his hair. "Welcome back to the ranks of Clan Vász. Cut for stew, bitte, and I'll have the peels back for the garden."

"Jawhol," he told her. She refilled his mug and left him to it and from the kitchen he could hear the lilting sound of her hum on an old harvest tune as the pots and pans clattered in a familiar accompaniment that meant home and hearth and family to his ears. So Kalmenka sat and peeled potatos, dropping long curling spirals of peel back into the bowl they had come from and slicing bite sized chunks into the empty bowl until it too was full.

By the time he was finishing the clan of Kinder - Zsófia's own and the assorted array of cousins and several nearby school friends of varying ages - had settled into some game on the other side of the room involving tumble jacks and marbles and one or two of them at a time running out of and back into the room at regular intervals with patter up and down the steps and clatter in the hallway. It made a consistent sort of sound, blending into something that wasn't too loud or awkwardly quiet, and Kalmenka didn't try to make sense of the rules that seemed to change by the minute so long as no one sounded upset. No adult had peered in to check since Zsófia had brought him a fresh mug, which meant Kalmenka had been designated Kinder watch of the day - perfectly sensible, since he didn't plan on moving far from the boy's side if he could help it, and he widened the circle of his attention to keep unthinking track of the shrill voices of his nieces and nephews. 

He was finishing up the last potato, sharp blade of the small knife slicing easily through it, when one of the littlest ones - Ade, with her dark curls and baby serious face, who had only just found her feet and lurched from one solid obstacle to the next more than she walked - made a stumbling beeline across the room and fetched up against his knees. Kalmenka put the bowls aside and scooped her up, checking automatically; no, still clean and dry, and smelling of talcum and milk in the sweet way babák did. She settled against his chest and shoved the toy she carried, some sort of plush shapeless dog thing made out of terrycloth and cotton stuffing, against his chin. So he kissed the dog and then kissed her, blowing a buzz of air against the curls of her hair until she burbled and laughed, and then let her back down again when she squirmed.

There was a shock of thick fuzz as copper red as Ade's curls were coal black peeking out from under the blankets on the sofa. It drew the baba like a magnet and Kalmenka tensed, ready to scoop her back if he needed to. She wobbled against the edge of the sofa, reaching to pat at the hint of fur between the blankets, her baby soft lisp hopeful. "Cica?" 1

Mattias jerked, awake in an instant from the touch, and flinched back. Ade flinched with him, sitting heavily on her diaper padded bottom on the floor with a thump as her knees gave out. Neither made a sound and Kalmenka let his breath out carefully as they looked at each other, baba and Kind, both wide eyed and startled.

Ade crawled back up with the help of the edge of the sofa, leaning, drunk with gravity, half onto the cushion as Mattias pulled back, the boy's face white under the edge of the blanket. Oblivious, the little girl pushed the stuffed toy at him. "Kutyus?" she offered, but the boy didn't know the word and she hadn't learned enough Deutsch yet, or the niceties of how to translate one to the other. "Kutyus segft?" 2

It was a dizzying mix in his chest, watching the one offer and the other, grass green eyes huge in a pale face, look from ernest toddler to toy and back again in blank incomprehension. But the spell was broken by Zsófia, bustling back in to retreive the bowls and absently scooping up her wayward daughter with her other hand. "All done? Good, danke. Don't let them wake your boy, báty, he needs the sleep. Keep an eye on them, will you?" And with the brisk efficiency of a long time mother Ade was deposited back with her older siblings, dishes were collected, and Kalmenka was left in quiet once more, chair and sofa and occupants making a subdued corner in the room that seemed more distant than it was from the game going on across the floor. 

Mattias offered no resistance when Kalmenka tucked the blankets back around him, flipping a corner over the boy's head so that only his face was visible, tucked under the shade of a fold of blanket as he settled back into the cushions, eyes sagging shut once more. Kalmenka stroked a light hand over a blanket wrapped shoulder, giving it a little pat.

There had been one moment, just before his sister had scooped girl and toy up, when one thin hand had stirred from the blankets, as though it might just reach out to touch the offered gift. He could remember the same hand, not so thin, fingers tipped red from the cold, held out with infinate patience for the chance to touch striped fur on a half starved feral cat that had rewarded the patience with bleeding ragged scratches.

He waited until the boy was asleep again, dropped into the steady rhythm of deeper breaths between one and the next as exhaustion caught him. A quick head count by habit accounted for his charges and then Kalmenka got up, stretching quietly and heading for the kitchen. 

Zsófia was wrist deep in bread dough, flour smudging her cheek where she had swiped at a loose strand of her hair. "Pot's on the stove," she told him, but he reached for a new glass and the pitcher of water instead of more coffee. 

"Can I borrow your sewing kit?" he asked her, and she looked startled, then shrugged and nodded.

"In the basket by the sofa - scraps are in the chest, if you need a patch. Just put everything back where you find it, bitte. I have enough trouble keeping the Kinder out of it."

"Danke," he said, kissing her non-floured cheek. She waved a sticky hand at him, going back to her kneading, and he went in search of the promised scraps. 

Like most women with growing Kinder, Zsófia kept a stock of every scrap of fabric that passed through her hands - one never knew when something would need patching or letting out and the leftover bits of what had gone into the making of it in the first place was the perfect thing. Kalmenka pulled the wicker chest close to the sofa, where he could sit and sort through it within sight of the boy. He slid his hands through countless layers of printed cotton, gingham, wool, linen, muslin and the cedar chips that kept kept the whole of the basket fresh, not really knowing what he was looking for but hoping it might tell him by touch or sight.

He found it towards the bottom, in washed soft cotton terrycloth that, when he drew it out, showed itself to be a pale lemon yellow with thin pastel blue stripes that he recognized from the towels hanging by the washbasin in the downstairs bath. Kalmenka shook it out across his knees, eyeing the uncut amount that remained with a critical eye, and then dug back into the basket to find another piece that matched in texture, even if the color was more of a spring grass green with white stripes. 

A half hour, during which the Kinder had taken up a game of hide and seek that he kept an ear on, was spent in carefully planning out the shapes and how they fit together before he ever set scissors to fabric. In the end all of the careful planning was for naught, as he was fairly certain his grasp of translating the two dimensional scraps into a three dimensional construct was fundamentally flawed somewhere, either in the math or in his lack of knowledge of things like seam allowances. When Zsófia called the Kinder to dinner he was more than ready to put aside needle and thread and the scraps of fabric, to his sister's vast amusement. "What _are_ you trying to do?"

"Make something," he replied with the loftiness that his status as older brother gave him. Zsófia only laughed.

"Well, I can tell _that_. Alright, Herr I-can-sew-a-straight-seam. But you owe me another piece of fabric when you're done ruining that one."

András and the other men came in for the meal, stamping snow off their boots and shrugging out of heavy coats; between them Zsófia and her husband marshalled the children into the dining room and Kalmenka was left with the quiet of the main room and the tray which his sister had pushed into his hands. He woke the boy as gently as he could, soft repititions of Mattias' name until the Kind's eyes blinked open, focusing on him hazily. 

Dinner was little different from breakfast, except that the soup stock had taken on bits of sausage, clear cooked onions and tiny slivers of potato. Kalmenka settled the boy against his side on the sofa, ignoring the sleepy protest against the move, and made a personal goal to coax at least half of the modest bowl into the Kind if he could. 

By the time the rest of the family had finished and Zsófia came to check on them Kalmenka had to admit defeat at a bare quarter of a bowl of soup, but most of it had been sopped up on buttered bread that Mattias could handle himself with more assurance than a spoon and the boy had even shakily licked his fingers clean. It was more success than failure, Kalmenka decided, and rescued the plate of bread and sliced ham that had been meant for himself before his sister quietly took the tray away. A chunk of ham slice was held out as temptation until it, too, was eaten, washed down with half a glass of water before Mattias finally turned his face away, burrowing back into the covers to resolutely escape. Kalmenka tucked the boy back in and finished his own sandwich; the flock of Kinder had, by the sound of it, tromped out after András to play in the snow and the main room was blissfully quiet and deserted when he picked the scattered pieces of his project back up.

Halfway through the afternoon he had dissolved into swearing under his breath between sucking at needle pricked fingers and glaring at recalcitrant scraps of fabric that refused to piece together the way he thought they should. By the time Zsófia came to enlist him for more vegetable chopping for supper, he had grimly plowed ahead regardless of mishappen seams and one incident of having sewed a piece on backwards which he was too irritated to go back and rip out in order to fix. Zsófia eyed the limp bundle of terrycloth dubiously. "What's it supposed to be?"

Sighing, Kalmenka shook the collection of scraps out for her perusal. "It was _supposed_ to be a cat," he admitted. He flicked the backwards set ear, which was green with white stripes while the other was yellow with blue. "Or maybe a dog. It needs a tail."

"Easy enough," his sister said, and in a quick minute between her hands and the scissors the leftover scraps of cloth transformed into a neat bundle of thin strips, sewn tight at one end. 

"Now what?" Kalmenka asked, perplexed. Zsófia tugged at the thick rope of his hair.

"Braid it. I know you know how to do that." Amused, she pulled the cloth out of his hands and replaced it with the bowls and cutting board she had brought out to him. " _After_ you see to the carrots and salad, bitte. Pillow batting's in the other chest, back of the closet."

So he sliced stew carrots and cabbage, delivering the finished bowls back to Zsófia before going in search of the promised stuffing. He finished the last seam and affixed the little braided tail, then went to ruefully show the results to his sister so that she could appropriately gloat. "You're right. I owe you another length of fabric."

Zsófia eyed the squashy pillow-ish thing, with its vague limb shapes and cockeyed ears set atop an awkward nub of a head. Wiping her hands off on her apron, she plucked it out of his hands and went resolutely to her sewing basket, digging around until she found a length of soft pine green ribbon. Deft stitches fixed it neatly into place, defining a neck between the head and body. From somewhere she found a small jingling bell charm, remnant, Kalmenka was sure, of a harvest fest garter, and sewed it into place. "There," she said, satisfied, and handed it back to him. "Now it's a cat." 

"Oh thank goodness," Kalmenka drawled, "one question answered. The species ambiguity was disturbing."

Zsófia slapped his shoulder lightly. "Next time you want to try sewing something, try asking me if I have a pattern first. You might save yourself a headache." She said it jokingly, but he felt her eyes flick over his worriedly, checking for signs of real pain and he shook his head to reassure her.

"If I'd been thinking harder about geometry it might have come out a bit better," he noted. "Or at least symetrical."

"I doubt a Kind will much care," she said, patting the shoulder she had just abused. "Speaking of - will you be at table for supper?"

"Don't think it's such a good idea," Kalmenka allowed. "I'll come get a tray, don't worry about it. You've got enough to set out already. 

Zsófia shot him a grateful look and bustled back to the kitchen. Kalmenka packed everything he had used back where it had been, and then turned to tidying the main room, collecting scattered toys and depositing them back in the chests and on the shelves where they belonged. By the time he was done the family was gathering in the dining room and he deemed it safe enough to duck back into the kitchen without the risk of running into Zsófia's preparations. 

The thin broth of the morning that had been simmering all the day had been thickened into a proper soup, full of chunks of vegetables and meat and a collander of fresh boiled noodles. Kalmenka dished out a full bowl of each to put on a tray and when Zsófia breezed back in to bring dishes out to the table the tray mysteriously acquired half a loaf of bread, a dish of stewed cherries, and another of dill coleslaw in the time his back was turned filling a glass of water. "He's not the only one that needs feeding," Zsófia scolded, and Kalmenka knew better than to argue when she pressed the tray into his hands.

"Mattias? Hey, Kind, wake up, it's time to eat." The news was met with something between a whine and a groan as the boy burrowed deeper into the covers. Kalmenka set the tray in easy reach and gamely dug the boy out, ignoring the stiff reluctance he was met with as he pulled Mattias back against his side and got them both settled once more. "Have something for you," he said quietly against the boy's crop of hair, and that, at least, seemed to reach some long buried childhood instinct that made the boy raise sleep bruised eyes to him with a vanishing trace of puzzled curiosity. 

Kalmenka brought out the little terry cloth cat and plunked it into the boy's hands "There," he declared firmly. "Now you've one of your own, to stave off Ade bringing you every dog and Kind chewed thing she can lay hands on."

The boy blinked, eyes flickering from the stuffed toy to Kalmenka and back again, finally settling on the cat as though it might be the safer of the two. None of the tension drained out of the thin shoulders resting against Kalmenka's side, but the boy touched the mismatched ears with a shaking finger and tapped the little bell to hear it jingle. Kalmenka firmly reined in the urge to wrap an arm around the boy, settling for running a light hand over the soft waves of the boy's growing hair. 

"...unser?"3

It was such a soft whisper he could almost have missed it entirely, the boy's voice rough and cracking from disuse. The word gave him pause, but the tone had the thinnest hint of plaintive question to it and the eyes that shifted up to his were unfocused, too wide and soft in the boy's pinched face, and Kalmenka answered without thinking, his own voice kept low and gentle. "Ja, Kind. Eures."4

It seemed the right thing to say because some of the boy's stiff tension lessened. Kalmenka dared to put an arm around him when the boy pressed into his side, settling down with the lumpy terry cloth cat folded securely against his chest. He didn't say anything else, or look up, but there was no resistance when Kalmenka presented a spoonful of soup and bite after hesitant bite it disappeared. He wouldn't touch the salad or cherries and only chewed tiredly on a chunk of bread, but half the bowl of soup was more than Kalmenka had hoped and he didn't press it when the boy ducked his head away from the spoon to curl back up, head pillowed on Kalmenka's hip. 

The family found them there after supper, and at Kalmenka's gesture for quiet András gathered most of the Kinder into a group around the fireplace. Zsófia settled into one of the chairs with a sigh; Ade and her next oldest brother, Miska, clambered onto the opposite end of the sofa, hands full of sticky sweet bread slices, and Kalmenka deflected the toddler's well meant attempts to press a squished lump of the treat at Mattias, who only tucked into the covers and couldn't be persuaded to come out. 

The evening turned to the quiet pop and crackle of the fireplace, the soft click of Zsófia's knitting when she couldn't make her hands stay still, and András bass rumble as he spun stories for yawning Kinder. By the time bedtime was announced the protests were perfunctuary and habitual, interspersed with yawns. Zsófia collected her two youngest from the sofa while her husband rounded up the older Kinder; between her and Kalmenka they managed to extricate toddler from teen where Ade had burrowed into the trailing end of Mattias' blankets without waking either. 

Mattias only murmured sleepily when Kalmenka scooped him up, blankets and all, grim faced every time he did at the rail thin lightness of the boy's weight in his arms. He took the stairs carefully, ducking head under the low lintel of the door, and slid the boy into the safety of the bed without mishap.

The boy roused with a sound of protest at the touch of the cold sheets; Kalmenka tucked the blankets better around him and threw a heavier layer of quilt over it all. "There now, shhh, it'll be warm again in a minute." He found the lamp and matches by feel in the dark, lighting it with a grimace for the sharp smell of sulfer in the burst of the match. The little light was enough to sort out his own blankets by, shaking them out over the camp mat he'd spread on the floor.

He was settled in, the little room already warming from the heat of two bodies, when the boy's thin hand intercepted his reach for the lamp, fingers catching in his sleeve, and the light touch focused Kalmenka's attention. "Ja, Kind? What is it?"

The boy shook his head slightly, rustling against the pillow. Kalmenka caught his eyes but only for a moment; the boy looked away again, down, and dropped his hand with a small shove against Kalmenka's wrist, shrinking back beneath the blankets.

The gesture Kalmenka recognized, if not the rest - in camp it would have been a shove at his shoulder or a flick of fingers, accompanied by a shrug or a nod and a rough "night" if they were feeling particularly social when they retired for the evening. He looked at it anew, accompanied by the tight pressed unhappy line of the boy's mouth and the flinch that traveled over the blanket wrapped body and wondered how he had never seen it, all those nights on the northern front.

The boy flinched harder when he stroked his hand over the cropped hair, leaning in to press a dry kiss to Mattias' forehead. There was a tuft of lemon terry cloth poking out of the nest of blankets; Kalmenka extracted the little cat, delivering it back into the boy's hands, and retucked the blankets to keep the chill out. "Good night, baba," he whispered, and pressed another kiss to coppery curls when the boy ducked his head before leaning up to blow out the light. 

He lay in the dark a long time, listening to the stuttering pauses of the boy's shaky breath before exhaustion finally caught him again and the smoother sound of his quiet hushed exhales lulled Kalmenka to sleep.

 

  
1 cica - kitty  
2 kutyus - puppy // segft - help  
3 unser - ours  
4 ja, kind. eures. - yes, child. yours. (pl)  



	4. Mine

Zsófia dried her hands on a dishtowel, the motions habitual, and Kalmenka didn't see her frown until she turned towards him, resting a hip against the counter as she folded her arms. "Báty," she said, all quiet seriousness, "how ill _is_ he?"

Kalmenka finished stacking the plates on the shelf before he gave her his attention, shrugging with a carelessness that didn't make it much past his shoulders. "I don't know," he admitted, then held up a hasty hand, finger raised, when Zsófia's brows drew further down. "Ah! Which means, _I don't know._ He could wake up fine tomorrow, or it could be five years from now. There's no way to tell."

His sister made a disgruntled noise. "And what will you do?"

That gave him pause, his own frown answering hers. "What's that mean? What am I supposed to do? Decide what an appropriate amount of time is to see what happens? _Then_ what?" His tone turned sharp, raking over the quick patter of words. "Turn him over to a hospital? An _asylum_? Back to state care, where all this started? _No_ , Sófi. He's _mine_. Five days or five years, it doesn't matter. I'll take care of him."

His look dared her to say anything to the contrary but she wisely said nothing. Instead she leaned up, hand on his shoulder to steady herself, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. It caught him mid-huff and left him open mouthed with nothing to say. Zsófia grinned, her dark eyes sparkling, as she settled back against the counter once more.

Kalmenka shut his mouth with a small sigh. "What was that for?" he asked, resigned.

Zsófia patted his cheek. "Because," she said fondly, " _that_ was my bátyám speaking, not the Herr Leutenant that the Mensch saw fit to send us back. And my brother knows family." The pat turned abrutply into a tap, finger waved firmly in front of his nose. "Though you picked a Luck cursed time and way to decide you wanted Kinder of your own. Couldn't you have just found a nice girl and gone about it the ordinary way like everyone else?"

Kalmenka threw up his hands. "What, and subject her to you lot? We both know no woman I've ever met would measure up to your standards, brat. You'd make the poor girl miserable. I'm safer adopting!"

His sister cocked her head, joking dropped as quickly as it had come. "Will you?" she asked.

"Will I what?"

"Adopt," she said, as though it were the most sensible thing possible. "You said yourself that he's younger than his records, which means he's not of age. And orphaned, by all accounts, so there's no reason you couldn't go down to state records and make it legal."

Kalmenka grimaced, shaking his head. "Na, except that he took - and broke - Reine oath. Going down to records would just be pointing a big arrow at him for the Mensch to follow. Besides," he added firmly, "the paper's a redundancy. He's mine, and I dare anyone to tell me - or him - otherwise."


	5. Safe in Hands

I.J. 315, northeast of Vác, Ungarn Province

It was a silly thing, he knew - 'girlish twaddle', his uncle had called it gruffly at any hint of his mother's reminiscing, and he was sure the others would agree - but Adolf liked the way Kalmenka's fingers fit between his own. The other man had square palms and lean fingers, blunt tipped and angular, that curled easily against Adolf's own and slipped, as naturally as though they belonged, into a warm tangle of fingers that rested easily in the grasp. 

It was just as easy, he was learning, to let bodies and limbs overlap and tangle. He found to his own surprise that he _could_ relax, weight pressed into another body, head pillowed on flesh and bone, and if Kalmenka thought him too heavy he never said, or seemed reluctant to tug Adolf into a warm knot of arms and stretched out legs late in the evening. 

But it was beyond silly, bordering into ridiculous, to tug the other man's hand closer across the expanse of Kalmenka's chest just so that Adolf, cheek pillowed on the man's shoulder and bereft of his glasses, could bring it into hazy focus. Kalmenka had blunt rounded nails, fingers tanned a darker, duskier shade than Adolf's own, but their callouses matched and he rubbed the pad of his thumb across one. There was something there, grainy, and he pulled their tangled hands closer before he could think better of it, pressing his lips to one of Kalmenka's knuckles and was rewarded with the taste of sugar and cinnamon, leftover traces of the apple crumble that had been dessert. 

"Mmm?" The other man's rumble was inquiring but more than half asleep; Adolf smiled and pressed a light kiss to the next knuckle. 

"You've got sugar on you."

Kalmenka stirred, stretching slightly, his body a long wiry length against Adolf's on the close confines of the sofa before he sank back into the cushions once more. "'s alright," he murmured, his breath brushing the top of Adolf's head. It was late; the fire in the grate was burning low and the house had long since gone dark and quiet around them, broken only by the crackle of the flames and the familiar sounds of the walls themselves, timber settling as the temperature fell and the wind whispered through the trees outside. It would be the right thing, Adolf knew, to suggest an actual bed and sleep; dawn would come when it would, whether either of them had a crick in their back from the sofa or not. 

On the other hand he was warm and comfortable where he was, and Kalmenka had slipped back into a doze, fingers limp against Adolf's own. Encouraged, Adolf moved on to the next knuckle, tasting sugar overlaid on the salt of sweat, and a dry dusting of flour. He drew the knuckle between his lips, letting his tongue worry at the mix of tastes, salt and sweet and sour. He wondered, dimly, how Kalmenka would have classified them - sodium, potassium, maybe, sucrose broken into chains of carbon and hydrogen but Adolf couldn't recall the exact numbers if he'd ever known them. The taste was soothing and he moved from one knuckle to the next, tongue and lips learning the feel of the fingers twined through his own. 

He felt it the moment Kalmenka's breath hitched in a quiet sigh; it was the moment he dared to take a fingertip between his lips, tongue laving over the calloused tip as he sucked it in like a baby at bottle. Kalmenka's free hand brushed Adolf's hair before dropping lower to rest between his shoulder blades, warm and solid through the linen of his shirt. By the second finger that hand was moving in small, light circles over Adolf's back and by the third the circles had become strokes, from the nape of his neck to the small of his back in long, firm lines. Small wonder, Adolf thought brokenly, that the surly, grizzled tom of a cat that had adopted their house could be caught turned to purring melted butter under Kalmenka's hands; the man's fingers, smoothing up and down his spine, made him wish for a rumbling purr as well. 

By the time he gave the final finger one last lingering lick Kalmenka's breath had quickened, the chest beneath Adolf's cheek rising with a hitch that told him how hard to suck, and where, and for how long. The body beneath his that had been intent on blending in with the cushions was all tense muscle and bone once more, pressed warm and tight against him. He unwound their fingers as he licked down the side of Kalmenka's hand, chasing a trace of cinnammon that had dusted there, and slid his fingers back through the other man's from behind to bare Kalmenka's palm to his searching tongue. 

Kalmenka made a whispered sound that Adolf felt more than heard, the other man's body pressing up into his own with a firm insistence. Adolf liked the sound; liked the response even more, when he daringly flattened his tongue against the other man's palm in a long, slow lick that brought Kalmenka's hips up, tight and hard against Adolf's belly. He found a point at the center of the man's palm that drew tiny sounds out, hummed against Kalmenka's closed lips, and made the fingers sliding down his back drag blunt nails lightly back up it. He made it his base camp; drew a circle around it with the tip of his tongue, lapping at it, and sent scouting patrols out into the surroundings to find more points, pressing his advantage with every quiet sound or pressing response that was fed back to him. 

He had worked down to the corded lines of vein and tendon before the encouraging murmurs became a full voiced sound but that sound, a quick sharp bark of it on Kalmenka's exhaled breath, the other man's fingers tensing for one second on Adolf's own, made him stop. Stop and pull back, bringing the world, what there was of it in front of him, back into the broader range of focus so that the gleam of fire light on tanned skin and dusky hairs resolved into the shapes of hand and wrist and arm. 

Adolf sucked in a sharp breath. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't..."

Kalmenka caught the fingers he was unthinkingly trying to withdraw, folding them between his own and giving them a little shake. "Na," he breathed, the words ruffling Adolf's hair, "it's nothing, 'dolf. Just old habit."

Adolf couldn't see the other man's face from the angle he was at, could only focus, however limitedly, on the black tracery of thin inked lines that wound over Kalmenka's wrist and forearm, the uppermost curve of which had been beneath his mouth. The tight warmth through his stomach and thighs had given way to a splash of uncomfortable cold - rather, Adolf thought, like how the sound of gunfire always struck him, no matter how many times he heard it. "Sorry," he repeated again, weakly.

The hand at his back slipped around his waist, dry lips pressing briefly to his forehead. "It's alright," Kalmenka replied quietly. "All locked up, safety's on."

Of course it was; Adolf kicked himself but a lifetime of frontline habit, he reasoned, wasn't grown out of overnight. Or even over years, because it took a moment to steel himself before he could trace the pad of his thumb over the curving edge of one of the matrixes that stained Kalmenka's inner wrist, the lines too overlaid for him to pick out the angles to translate into numbers. "Does it hurt?" 

Kalmenka made a small sound of approval, his free hand slipping under the hem of Adolf's shirt to rest, warm, against his ribs. "Not if I don't think the numbers," Kalmenka allowed, and Adolf could feel the other man's grin pressed against his forehead, warm breath of words ruffling his hair. "And you were on the right path for not thinking."

There was a promise in the husky edges of Kalmenka's tone that gave Adolf the impulse to lean forward, and really, it was just salt and skin beneath his tongue, warm flesh over bone and tendon, trailing up the soft underside of Kalmenka's arm to lick once more at his palm. There was nothing in the inked lines that tasted or felt any different; if he closed his eyes it was just skin that tasted of sweat and a little of soap and traces of spice and sugar from the evening's meal. 

Adolf didn't close his eyes. He watched, no further than the tip of his own nose, as his tongue slid over the lines; listened to the hitch and catch of Kalmenka's breath as he traced one line, then another, the long twisting curves of them, the endless angles and turns. He lapped at the creases of the wrist where the salt lingered, licked across palm and swiped at fingertips, before returning to trace, firmly, a small contained triangle nestled within the lines of overlapping matrixes against the other man's inner wrist.

Kalmenka bit back a sound, his fingers digging into Adolf's side. Adolf pushed himself up, reaching half blind, and found the other man's mouth with his own; swallowed sound and breath alike as he pressed deep. 

It was all taste and feel and sound, the world a blur of light and shadows, but if he pulled back just enough, Adolf found, he could bring the other man's face into focus - enough to make out the paler glint of his eyes beneath dark lashes and the wet shine of his mouth. Kalmenka started to reach for him and he shook his head, once, his voice low and strange to his own ears. "Don't. Let me. Please."

It was a small moment, nothing more than a few heartbeats - _yes? no? what was I thinking?_ \- and then Kalmenka relaxed, hand falling away. "Jawohl," he whispered and Adolf licked the word from his smiling lips, chasing it across his tongue. Kalmenka opened under the kiss, a moan vibrating low in his throat as Adolf slid a hand down between them, the firm press of his palm dragging Kalmenka's hips up in a fluid curve of the man's spine. 

There was intoxication better than malt liquor to be found in sound; in the husky pant of breath as he rubbed in circles and the deeper muffled half moans when he pressed harder, moved faster. But better than sound was sight, the way Kalmenka's eyes slid half shut, head tipped back, and the work of muscles through the lines of his throat. Adolf's glasses were on the end table, an arm's reach beyond Kalmenka's head; he wished for them, almost, and might have reached, but there was something sharper, more intimate, in the limited range of his own eyes. Close enough to feel the puff of breath when Kalmenka exhaled as he undid the buttons on the other man's trousers; close enough to almost _feel_ the vibrations of the moan in the air between them as he slid his hand inside, palming the hard length of Kalmenka's cock. 

It wasn't, he'd tried to tell himself countless times, any different than handling his own; but at the same time, always, it _was_ , and it sent frissons down his spine. It was heat and warmth; the wiry press of another body and a satin hardness that drew gasps and strangled sounds from another man's throat, breathed onto Adolf's lips along with his own name and a wordless plea that his fingers answered. There were things Adolf didn't like to find names for, and other things he couldn't, but he loved the feel of skin against his palm, the slide of it and the crisp curls against his fingertips and the way Kalmenka arched, hips lifting, when he reached further to gently cup and roll the man's balls between his fingers. 

Long strokes, steady pressure; Kalmenka was panting, one hand clenched on Adolf's hip, the other gripping the back of the sofa, his hips jerking with every stroke. Adolf breathed it in, touch and smell and _sight_ , the way the other man's head fell back, teeth catching at his lower lip, eyes closed, whole body surging, lifting, into Adolf's touch. 

There were places along Kalmenka's jaw, where the muscles tightened, that begged to be licked but the other man's breath was shortening and more than taste Adolf wanted to _see_. To watch the man's mouth fall open as he tightened his grip, watch and hear the ragged moan as he quickened the pace, and finally, knowing it was coming, watching it work through the lines of jaw and brow and mouth even as he could feel it tremble up through the body beneath his. To watch as the first spasm surged up through his fingers to find its home in the open, raw expression and gut deep moan as Kalmenka came, Adolf's name a soft, stuttered sound on his broken breath. 

He held him through the spasms, fingers slick and wet; held him, unmoving, until Kalmenka caught a deeper breath, the hand at Adolf's hip unclenching. When he slid his hand free Kalmenka's was there to catch it, fingers sliding easily once more between his; it was his hand, this time, that was brought up to the other man's waiting mouth, a hot tongue curling around his fingertip and shooting sparks straight to his aching cock. 

Kalmenka's lips curved in the lazy trace of a smile, mouth closing over Adolf's finger in a slow sucking slide that dragged a groan from Adolf's throat. He let it pop from his lips with a wet sound, tongue dragging an uneven path over the other fingers. "Help you with that?" he offered.

The press of his thigh upwards, between Adolf's, made Adolf bite back a whimper. "Fuck yes," he rasped. Their hands, already clasped, made it easy to tug, half question, half demand. "Bed?"

The smile was lazier now, boneless and sated, with the low husky rumble beneath it that poured heat down Adolf's spine. _"Jawohl."_


	6. Adoption

Adolf blinked hazily down the last steps, the blur of lingering sleep dragging at him all through the automatic motions of getting up and dressed. There were mornings when even the ingrained cue of sliding his glasses into place couldn't engage his mind, but the sole advantage to his designated mornings to put together breakfast was the chance for the first cup of coffee and it was the thought of that, more than the clock, which had hauled him reluctantly from the warmth of the covers and tugged him down the stairs an hour earlier than he would have liked.

Not, however, early enough to beat a growing boy's appetite; the lamps were already lit and Adolf caught a glimpse of Mattias' shock of copper curls as the boy bent down to retreive something dropped behind the table. "Guten Morgen, Kind," Adolf said, half muffling a jaw popping yawn that escaped. "Did you sleep we... _What the FUCK is that?_ "

It was an unfortunate but inescapable fact that adrenaline was one hundred percent more effective as a stimulant than any commonly ingested drink. Adolf nearly choked as he rounded the corner of the table and caught a look at what Mattias was crouched over, and then _did_ choke, biting off the words as both the boy and the _thing_ on the floor flinched at his sudden volume. 

The thing looked dead, a huge lump of thick caked mud all dripping or oozing in smears across the wood floor, but oh Luck it was only _mostly_ dead because it was moving, feebly crawling with jerky motions and an awful rattling hiss that rose and fell at a timbre that put the hair up across the back of Adolf's arms. He swallowed thickly around the sudden cold chill in his throat; Fortune bless, the boy was _right there_ , crouched beside the thing in bare feet and naught but a night gown and if the thing struck out...

"Baba," he said carefully, keeping his voice low and painfully calm, "Kind, bitte, come here please. Come away from it."

Mattias glanced up, puzzled. "It's just a cat, Papa."

The thing gave another hissed warning, half stuttering snarled yowl, and Adolf bit down on the twitching itch to bodily grab the boy and pull him out of the way. His gaze skittered over the kitchen; his own half step back in surprise had put him out of easy reach of the heavy hanging pans, the largest knives were in the block over _there_ and fuck, fuck, fuck, his P08 was in its case by the door with the coats because when was the last time he needed a gun in the _house_... "I really _don't_ think that's a cat. Kind, _please_. Just come over here."

The boy made an exasperated sound and why oh why did he have to pick _now_ to remember he was closer to fifteen than five? Kalmenka was so much better at the whole thing but with that awful _beast_ fixing one beady yellow eye on the boy and gathering in on itself to move at any provocation Adolf didn't even dare raise his voice. "Step away from it, Kind." 

Mattias threw him a disgruntled look and - moving with just the right amount of slowness to avoid provoking the thing - held out one hand. "Hand me the spoons."

The request didn't even register for a moment, so intent was Adolf on the immediate goals. "Kind, that isn't... what?"

"The spoons," Mattias repeated patiently. "On the table, Papa. Just hand them to me, I'd rather not be scratched."

The beast howled again, as though it knew very well it was the subject of conversation, and oh, thank the numbers, following hard on the heels of that wailing hiss was the heavy patter of Kalmenka's steps down the stairs. The other man was sleep mussed, the long rope of his hair fuzzy and disheveled, shirt inside out and pants half buttoned, but there was a loaded pistol in his hand and his sharp bark was perfectly awake. "What the _fuck_ is going on...?"

The horrid thing hissed and spat. Mattias slid back out of reach, shooting them both a flinty eyed glare. "Quiet!" he hissed. "You're scaring it. Papa, _the spoons_. Bitte."

Adolf ground back a frustrated groan. "Mattias, if you'd just get out of the way..."

Kalmenka tapped his arm lightly, then, keeping an eye and the gun trained on the beast, stepped forward carefully to reach for the spoons and pass them to the boy's waiting hand. "Baba," he said, quietly grim, "I don't want to be putting stitches in you. How did it get in the house?"

Mattias was watching the beast as well, though not nearly as warily as Adolf felt he should. "It was under the steps when I went out to go get the eggs," he told them matter of factly. "I wasn't going to leave it there." He threaded the handles of the spoons through his fingers and Adolf winced as the low, barely felt surge of the Mathe swept past him. Kalmenka gave a short, sharp sound, breath inhaled, as the steel spoons melted between Mattias' fingers, metal dripping and reforming in seconds in a writhing wave across the boy's hands. 

"There," Mattias said softly, satisfied, as he leaned forward once more. "There now."

The hulking beast shrieked and lashed out, quick as a striking snake, to be met with the grating sound of claw against metal. Mattias snorted and didn't flinch, his metal sheathed hands rippling faintly with each movement as he adjusted the equations to match. "Stop that. No scratching."

Kalmenka shared a glance with Adolf before slowly thumbing the safety of his pistol on and setting it aside. "So what now?"

"You can't be serious," Adolf exclaimed. The beast snarled but Mattias shushed it, one of the boy's hands pressed firmly to the thing's matted neck. "You have no idea what diseases that thing has, rabies or mange or fuck knows what..."

Kalmenka shrugged slightly. "He's got a point, Baba. And I hate to say it, but even if it's otherwise healthy I doubt it'll last a night." He nodded towards the thing with its single wild eye and the streaks of blood and mud smeared across the floor. "Not as ripped up as it is. Be kinder to let it get on with its dying."

But despite his words he was easing around the table, leaving Adolf to sputter as Kalmenka knelt down beside the boy to give the panting beast a closer look. "Don't expect you know what rabies feel like, but you know what a cat's _supposed_ to feel like?"

Mattias considered, eyes fixed and unfocused on the far wall for a moment before nodding. "Can you hold it, Apa? I can't do it through these," he said, flicking his steel layered fingers.

Kalmenka sighed, casting a rueful glance back at Adolf. "Don't say it," he warned, "I already know what you're thinking." He reached out cautiously, making a face as he sunk his fingers into mud matted fur. "And if I have to chemical strip my hands after this," he told it, his low, soothing tone in counterpoint to his words, "then we're both going to be really damned unhappy about it, I guarantee it. Alright, Baba, I've got it."

Mattias shook his hands, the thin layer of steel rippling and melting to reform into pebble sized chunks of metal that clattered to the floor. The beast snarled as Mattias reached out but Kalmenka held it firm and the boy's fingers sank back into the deep, mud slicked ruff at its neck. 

The rush of the Mathe was louder this time, a rising cresting wave that never quite burst, swelling over and over in a murmur that Adolf felt more than heard. Kalmenka's jaw was set tight, brows creased, but he didn't move, hands clamped firmly around the struggling thing.

It happened too quickly for either man to react; one moment the filthy thing was snarling, the next it went limp beneath Kalmenka's hands and something burst from the mangled half of its face, yellowish white pus splashing across the floor. Kalmenka swore roundly, tensing. "Röt...!"

"It's clean," Mattias replied, in the remotely distant tension of a Reine working the equations as he spoke. "The eye was infected, but the blood's clean." He pushed Kalmenka's hands away, fingers combing over the mud caked body. He made a small sound in his throat, reaching for one of the beast's hind legs and Adolf winced at the clear sound of bone against bone as the boy deftly pulled and twisted something back into place. 

Satisfied, Mattias leaned back on his heels, blinking rapidly as the hum of the Mathe dissipated. "It's alright," he said, his voice cracking sharply on the last syllable, high to low and back again. "The blood's clean. I purged the infection. It... it's just a sedative."

Kalmenka leaned forward carefully, brushing a kiss over the boy's forehead. "Good work," he said gently. "I think I can take it from here, Baba, so tell you what - why don't you take a pitcher of water and go get cleaned up and dressed before breakfast, hmm?"

Mattias blinked at him for a long moment, his breathing erratically quick, then half nodded in short, jerky motions. Kalmenka gave him a small nudge, forehead to forehead, one grimy hand gesturing for Adolf's assistance. 

Adolf stepped forward to reach down gingerly, cupping his hands under the boy's elbows to urge him up. Mattias stumbled against him before catching his balance, eyes still half unfocused, and leaned unresistingly against the kitchen table when Adolf guided him there. By the time he had filled one of the pitchers three fourths full Mattias was breathing deeper, his motions no longer jerky and his eyes, when he reached out to take the pitcher from Adolf, were tracking properly. Adolf made sure his grip on the pitcher was secure, the heavy thing clasped firmly to the boy's chest, before he let go. "Go on, Kind, it's alright," he told the boy quietly. "Lots of soap, ja? Hot as you can stand it."

Mattias nodded, eyes fixed carefully on the level of the water in the pitcher, and stepped away from the table with exaggerated carefullness, each step deliberate and cautious. Adolf held his breath, knowing better than to help but balling his hands from the itch to do so. Only when the boy had crossed the threshold of the kitchen, turning down the short hall to his room, did Adolf let go the breath he was holding in a shaky rush. 

Kalmenka was still on the floor, sitting with his feet spread, the muddy lump of the cat between them, elbows propped on his bent knees and his equally muddy hands dangling between them. His gaze was on the kitchen door, pained tiredness carving thin, fine lines around his tightened eyes. Adolf sucked in a breath, wrapping his arms around his ribs with convulsive tightness. "How... I didn't know you could _do_ that with the Mathe..."

Kalmenka snorted softly. Grimacing at the state of his hands, he pushed himself up, eyeing the swathe of filth around the animal on the floor. " _I_ couldn't," he admitted. "Not even at my best. Oh," he started to flick his fingers, then thought better of it, shrugging instead, "reduce steel to liquid or the blood to base components, sure. Everything organic’s carbon and hydrogen when you get down to it. But to reverse that, to combine that into what it has to be to be blood... or that trick he has with holding the equations through motion - that’s more than I could hold steady in my head at one time."

Adolf hugged himself tighter. "And he just... he..."

"Hey." Kalmenka stepped forward, leaning in to press his forehead lightly against Adolf's. "Hey. Meyer. Stay with me."

Adolf blinked, sucking in a deep breath. "Sorry, mein Herr." He shook his head, trying to shake the shiver down his spine. "He just... and after..."

"That's why they wanted him," Kalmenka said grimly. "They taught him to do that on _people_ , Adolf. After a grown man a cat's not much of anything, eh?"

"No," Adolf sighed. "No, I guess not." He took one more deep breath, then reached up to distractedly straighten his glasses and comb back his hair. "What now?"

"Well," Kalmenka said reasonably, " _now_ I think it's your turn to cook breakfast." He looked ruefully at the lump on the floor. "Because I apparently have a cat to wash, before that sedative wears off. Do you think if I scrub off enough of that mud there might actually be a cat - _half_ a cat - under there somewhere?"

"You're all insane," Adolf groaned. Kalmenka grinned, the bright flash of the smile easing the lines around his eyes. 

"Yes," he agreed easily, "yes, _we_ are."

Adolf, knowing full well he was included in that statement, shook his head and made no effort to duck the laughing brush of Kalmenka's kiss across his cheek.


	7. That's What They All Say

"....So," Jann said, thoughtfully, head tipped back against the sofa as he eyed Adolf. "One week, huh?"

Adolf glanced up from where he was sitting, papers spread out across his knees as he worried at the tip of his pen with his teeth. "Hmm?"

"A week," Jann supplied helpfully. "Last time I was here - which was five months ago - you were staying for a week. So is this another week, or by some strange mixing up of numbers is this still the same week?"

The other man frowned. "Jann..."

"Or," Jann continued blithely, ignoring the warning tone, "are you just that fond of the sofa?" He patted the cushion next to him fondly. "'Cus I was here when we moved it in, and I'd be the first to agree - it's a really nice sofa. Room to stretch out, soft but not too soft, nice and broad... wait, I suppose that might describe a bed, too, huh? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Adolf, you were always the numbers man, but aren't there only two bedrooms in this house? I'm just doing the math, here, you know, and... ow!"

The pen, which bounced off of Jann's forehead, was followed by a pillow flung with force. "Jann," Adolf said firmly, "shut up."

* * * * *

There were raised voices and thumps coming from inside; after a particularly resounding crash Vász wasn't surprised when Mattias appeared on the porch, Herr General trailing after him.

"They're throwing things," Mattias informed him bluntly, dropping down to sit beside Vász on the step and flipping the book he was carrying back open to the page he had marked with one finger.

"Ja... they do that," Vász agreed mildly.

He leaned back on his elbows, ankles stretched out and crossed. Mattias reached across without glancing up from the pages of his book. "Bitte?" Vász dutifully fished a cigarette from his pocket, handing it over without comment, and tipped his head back to blow a lazy stream of curling smoke into the evening air as Mattias lit his own. The bulk of a sulking cat slunk inbetween them, tail twitching to hit first Vász's arm, then Mattias', and back again.

It was sooner than Vász expected before Jann appeared in the doorway, hair askew and bereft of one boot. "Mein Herr," he said, sober faced but with his tone of barely contained laughter utterly ruining the effect, "mein Herr, you know Adolf's like a little brother to me. And I've really got to ask, mein Herr, what your intentions are, because you can't just go ruining a fellow and next thing you know people are saying you knocked him up..."

"Alright," Vász drawled, "no more drinking for you tonight." Stretching farther back, he hooked a hand around Jann's sock clad ankle and yanked, dumping the other man onto the porch with a yelp.

He scrambled up off the steps before Jann righted himself, backing away, which is why he had a good look at Mattias' face. Excepting the lack of ears to flatten back against his head, Kind and cat had identical expressions of indignant irritation, and by the time Jann found his feet, both had gotten up with identical twitches and stalked back indoors, which was the last thing Vász saw before Jann tackled him and sent them both tumbling over the grass.

* * * * *

Adolf was sitting on the floor amidst a sea of scattered pillows, papers and odds and ends, calmly cleaning his glasses on the tails of his shirt, when Mattias stomped back in. "Now they're out on the lawn," the boy announced waspishly.

Adolf sighed, squinting through one lens before giving it another swipe. "Ja, well... they do that, Kind."

Mattias sighed with sharp exasperation, rolling his eyes. "That's exactly what Apa said," he complained, throwing himself down in a sprawl across the sofa to glare at his book. Herr General jumped up after another moment, settling in across the boy's hip to vigorously twist around and lick the fur of one shoulder into sharp spikes of disdain.


	8. Yours

"Kalmenka!"

Vász finished the cut he was making, calmly twisting the ends of the wire in place before stepping back to survey his repair work on the coop with a critical eye. If he had a Mark, or even a Pfennig, for every time he had heard his name yelled in that tone through his life, he thought, the life in question might be quite a bit better off. "Something up?"

"Yes," Adolph replied with acid irritation. The other man was on the porch steps, his normally smooth hair mussed and back stiffly straight, arms crossed solidly over his chest. " _Your_ cat is in the clean laundry that I'm _trying_ to put away and _your_ son is doing Luck only knows what in the kitchen but it smells like tar and gunpowder clear out to the hall!"

Vász blinked. "And what am I supposed to do about it?" he asked, puzzled, then blinked again, frowning. "And why's it suddenly _my_ cat and _my_ Kind?"

Adolf just _looked_ at him, mouth set in a stubborn line that wouldn't be swayed until Vász sighed. "Besides the fact that they are," he allowed, "though I still say Herr General isn't anybody's but his own and nobody's ever going to convince a cat otherwise." He snorted, wiping sweat and stray strands of hair out of his eyes. "Way you say it, makes it sound like my sister yelling at her man..."

Vász trailed off. Adolf, despite a splotchy flush to his cheeks and a pinched line to his mouth, held his tongue and unslung the towel draped across one shoulder with sharp, crisp motions, snapping it straight and folding it with the same neat precision they had both learned in boot camp. His look and pointed silence dared the other man to say anything and Vász wisely shut his mouth with a snap. 

The other man stepped aside when Vász climbed the steps but his look didn't yield an inch. " _Your_ son and cat," he said primly.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Adolf Meyer," Vász returned lightly, "and I _will_ get you back for this, don't think I won't." Jerking open the front door, he leaned inside, bellow raised to field drill levels. "KIND! Baba, air the kitchen out when you're doing that crap! And then go get the General, he's in the laundry again! It's a nice day out here, cats and Kinder belong outside!"

There was a muffled answer and thudding crash from the general direction of the kitchen. "Satisfied?" Vász inquired pleasantly. 

"Better," Adolf allowed grudgingly. Brushing past Vász, he took the stairs at a clip, interrupted halfway to flatten himself against the wall as Mattias, hair tied haphazardly back with a strip of towel serving as a headband, darted past him to pound up the stairs after the errant cat. "Mattias!"

"Sorry, Papa!" There was another crash from upstairs and an angry yowl of feline indignance and then Mattias came pounding back down the stairs, arms full of irritated striped fur that he slid down the short hall to thrust into Vász's hands. "Here, Apa!" he said breathlessly, words tripping over themselves in a jumble. "I can't come out, I've got to get the temperature just right and if it boils it'll _ruin_ it and I'll just be another hour, I promise, I just want to get this reaction down!" The cat was shoved willy nilly into Vász's grasp and Mattias was off again, darting back through the kitchen doorway where an sharp, acridly yellow steam was drifting into the hallway. 

"Keep the windows open!" Vász yelled after him. Adolf shook his head, jabbing a sharp finger at the other man. 

" _Your_ son. _Your_ cat!" Satisfied that his point was made, Adolf stomped back up the stairs, the door to the bedroom slamming.

Shaking his head, Vász released the squirming cat into the grass beside the porch. "Here, mein Herr. Make yourself useful. Just don't chase the damned chickens, they're _our_ dinner, not yours!" Closing the door securely, he went to retrieve the wire spool and snips. "And Sófi; wonders why I never married..."


	9. Let's Talk About...

"He's _your_ son," Adolf said without looking up from his book. It was a new one, the gold stamped letters across the cloth cover still bright and shiny, and Adolf had been buried up to his nose in it for the last two evenings, pillows thrown up against the headboard so that he could sit curled on his half of the bed and angle the pages towards the lamp light. "You should talk to him."

"Don't do that," Kalmenka replied, frowning down at his own evening project - a pair of socks, the heel of one which was in dire need of darning.

Adolf glanced up briefly, the light reflecting white off of his glasses. "Do what?"

"That emphasis thing," Kalmenka grumbled, giving the other man's shoulder a nudge with his own. "He's _your_ son too."

Adolf shoved back, successfully claiming another inch of the pillows as Kalmenka had to grab for his darning needle. "Be that as it may," the other man said primly, "he was _your_ son first."

"And _that_ ," Kalmenka added, waving the blunt tipped needle at him irritably. "You only do that when you want to pawn something off on me because _you_ don't want to have to deal with it."

"Well," Adolf replied, unrepentant, "I _don't_." Sighing, he stuck a finger between the pages to hold his place and closed his book, turning an exasperated expression on his lover. "Honestly, Kalmenka, between the two of us, which one is more qualified to do this? Hm?"

"It's a moot point anyways," Kalmenka replied around a mouthful of yarn, the cut tip of which he was trying to roll into a point. "He went through basic training. _And_ a full year in the ranks. Trust me, he's already heard it all."

Adolf snorted and reached over to yank the thread of yarn from Kalmenka's mouth, provoking a yelp from the other man. "Oh _yes_ ," he said, scathing. "You'll kindly remember, main Harr, that _I_ went through basic training too. And a goodly few years in the ranks, and I _know_ how much slander, boasting, misinformation and ridiculous bragging goes on there. Do you honestly think that's a good basis of an education, or that your sisters won't rightfully beat you black and blue if you leave it at that?"

"'ey," Kalmenka protested. "Don't fight dirty, 'dolf. Sóphie doesn't get a say, not when she's got András there to do it for her..." He paused, thoughtful. "Now there's an idea..."

Adolf dug an elbow into his ribs, not at all by accident. "You are _not_ going to get your brother in law to do this, Kalmenka," he warned darkly. "For Luck's sake, just _talk_ to the boy."

"Easy for you to say," Kalmenka grumbled, trying to line up yarn end and eye of the needle. "You _know_ he's going to want to sit through it about as much as the cat does through a bath. And honestly, I don't see what the rush is..."

"He's _fifteen_ ," his lover reminded him, flat voiced.

"Yes, and these things _happen_ at that age..."

Adolf's fingers dug into his jaw, tugging his head around. "And what were _you_ doing at that age, hm?" the other man asked pointedly. "Nearly married, wasn't it, because you couldn't keep it in your pants when a pretty girl offered?"

"Oh," Kalmenka managed, sheepish. "Sóphie told you about that, did she?"

"It might have come up once," Adolf replied sharply, letting him go with a blunt pat to his cheek. "Honestly, Kalmenka, just _talk_ to him. I don't think either of us want to end up grandfathers this early."

"I think you're vastly overestimating his social skills," Kalmenka sighed, turning back to his yarn, "but fine, yes, alright, I'll talk to him."

Adolf leaned over to press a brief kiss to his cheek. "See?" he said. "Not so hard."

"You're only saying that because _you're_ not doing it," Kalmenka growled. It earned him another pat on his thigh, the other man's weight resting warm against his side as Adolf settled back against the pillows and opened his book once more. 

"Don't complain," Adolf told him cheerfully, and kindly refrained from following it up until after Kalmenka had taken the thread from his mouth. "It's what you get for being an expert."

* * * * *

There were times Adolf hated the rural cultures which kept the scattered archaic languages and dialects of the lands of the Reich alive, most notably and usually when it meant that something important was being said that he couldn't understand. Despite having learned a double handful of ways to curse in the Magyar tongue over the years, he couldn't hold anything like a conversation in it and Zsophia, no matter how raised in volume her voice might be, was far too polite a woman to use the sort of swear words Adolf had learned from Kalmenka on the eastern front.

Which didn't, as anyone knew, preclude her saying any number of things, in perfectly polite terms, that could cut straight to the bone. Adolf tucked his hands beneath his knees, fingers sunk into the sofa cushions, and tried not to fidget. Raised voices, he tried to tell himself, didn't necessarily mean _bad_. It rarely meant good, but it might not mean bad. It might be something to do with Kalmenka's family, gossip or ranting about one of his other sisters, or some of the nephews, or who knew what, except Kalmenka's voice had the tone that Adolf associated with the man trying to bluff his way out of disciplinary duties and no, no, really, that was just _never_ a good sign. He swallowed dryly and firmly told his stomach that no, dropping _through_ the bottom of the couch really wasn't an option.

Mattias, coming out of the downstairs wash room, cocked an ear at the ruckus in the kitchen where Zsophia's voice was overriding Kalmenka's in sharp, staccato sounds. Adolf, watching, found his own worry neatly shunted firmly to the side - the boy didn't always do well with raised voices, particularly angry ones, and so help him he would compound whatever horrible opinion Zsophia might have of him for shacking up with her brother if all of the yelling had a bad effect on their boy.

It wasn't, thankfully, one of _those_ days. Mattias listened to it for a moment, then turned away with an almost visible shrug and wandered into the family room, flinging himself down easily next to Adolf on the sofa. "Tante Zsophia's taking stripes out of Apa," he remarked casually.

Adolf tried not to look _too_ interested. "Ah? Can you understand it?"

Mattias shrugged. "Na. Never learned more than 'please' and 'thank you'. 'S just the same way she sounds when she's telling the twins what for 'cus they've done something stupid."

"Oh," Adolf managed, and was proud that it came out relatively steady. "So... she's... giving him a dressing down for doing something stupid." Because yes, really, there was adopting ill children and stray cats and that was all well and good, but when you shacked up steady with a former squad mate then really...

Mattias was frowning at him. Sitting up, the boy abruptly shifted, and before he quite knew it Adolf had a lapful of gangly half-grown teen, the boy's cheek pillowed on his shoulder, and Mattias rapped a knuckle against the older man's breastbone. "Stop that," he said, peevish. 

"...um?" Adolf said, with a certain lack of eloquence.

Mattias rapped him again. "That face you're making, Papa. Stop it. You worry too much." He waved a hand towards the kitchen. "Tante Zsophia doesn't muck around. She's chewing out Apa, not _you_. If she was mad at you she'd _say_ so." He slid off Adolf's lap, wriggling into the cushions, and gave the older man an unceremonious shove. "Move over? I want to put my feet up."

"Take your shoes off first," Adolf replied automatically, but he moved, and by the time the conversation, such as it was, in the kitchen was over and a red-faced Kalmenka trailed his sister back into the family room Adolf had moved to the far side of the sofa with Mattias' sock clad feet across his lap and the both of them pinned down by the inelegant sprawl of the monster cat who had jumped up onto Mattias' stomach. 

It wasn't, Adolf thought with one last burst of awful adrenaline, the way he wanted to greet his new sister-in-law, but it was some comfort that it could hardly get any _worse_ and therefore there was nowhere to go but up.

Zsophia stopped in front of him, fists planted on her hips, and jerked her chin back at her brother. "He gives you any trouble," she told Adolf shortly, "and you call _me_." Her sudden smile softened the stern lines of her face and Adolf couldn't do more than blink as she swooped down to press a quick kiss to his cheek. "Don't stint on the beatings," she told him quietly. "Báty's got a hard head - you might have to use a stick."

"I _heard_ that," Kalmenka groused, dropping into the chair.

"You did not," his sister countered fondly, "And the fact that you didn't _need_ to proves my point." She dropped another kiss on Adolf's forehead before straightening. "Sticks," she told him pleasantly. "Large ones. He has a _very_ hard head."

* * * * *

"...I'd tell you not do anything I wouldn't do but we both know better, and in short just don't do anything _dumb_ and... and that's all I can really think of," Kalmenka finished. Sitting back with a sigh, he scrubbed a hand over his face. "We good, Kind?"

The reply from Mattias, who had collapsed face first on the table some fifteen minutes previously, head pillowed on his upper arms and hands fisted in silent protest in the curls of his hair, was a muffled sort of groan. Kalmenka felt as though he could sympathize. "By which I mean, do you think that's enough to get us off the hook with your Papa?" he clarified. The only answer was a renewed yanking on the boy's abused hair and Kalmenka propped his own elbows on the table top and dug a knuckle into the dull ache building in his head. "I mean, really, that's the best I can tell you short of actual _technique_ , and _THAT_ you're better off getting through empirical work, not theory. So now if your Papa or Sophie ever ask, yes, you know all about the difference between boys and girls, and how to protect yourself, and where babies come from, and..."

Mattias made a sound alarmingly similar to what Harr General had made when the cat had misjudged a jump and slipped into the wash tub on laundry day. Kalmenka let him get it out for a bit, then shoved his chair back to climb to his feet, patting the boy's shoulder in passing. "Hold on."

He came back with a bottle and two glasses, thumped the glasses down, and splashed double portions of clear vodka into both. "Should've done this first," he confided, slumping back into his seat with his own glass. "Look, Kind, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Every boy your age goes through this, every one of 'em eventually gets over it, and what you do in your own room is your own business, we just don't want you doing anything stupid with anyone _else."_

Mattias finally unwound his fingers from his hair, raising a face beneath the tousled mop of his curls that was as white as paper except for the two matching splashes of fiery red that sat high on either cheek. Glaring, he levered himself up off of the table and grabbed up the glass in front of him. "There is _not,"_ he spat, "enough liquor in this entire house to make this _go away."_ He dashed back the vodka in one hard swallow, exploded into coughing mixed with muffled swearing, and thrust the glass back out for a refill.


	10. Can We Keep It?

It was... a kitten. Adolf could tell it was a kitten because it was making the high pitched sort of peeping mews that kittens in distress made. 

It was also a ragged lump of mud and dripping wet fur, a ridiculous mix of slicked and spikey rumpled bits over a scrawney kitten shaped body, rat curl of a tail curved up against its belly and needle tipped claws splayed out on too-large paws that were flailing at the air as it dangled by the scruff of its neck from the hands of his son - who was equally muddy, wet, dripping, and rumpled and spikey all over.

"Sorry, Papa," Mattias said, shifting from one squelchy foot to the other. The boy's shirt, Adolf thought dimly, was going to be fit for nothing but the rag bin by the time they washed it off of him. "Sorry, but it was in the _river_."

"So you went in after it," Adolf clarifies, and was answered with an enthusiastically earnest nod which would normally have produce bouncing curls but mostly just helped to distribute more water onto the hallway floor at that moment. "We're not keeping it," he concluded firmly.

Mattias deflated, shoulders sagging. "Harr General wouldn't like it," he agreed reluctantly.

The boy was dripping and wet and bleeding from scratches, the floor was turning into a muddy puddle that needed mopping, the waterlogged kitten was mewling and Adolf couldn't really recall how to be properly forbidding the way he once had been with new recruits. "Maybe it can sleep in the barn," he relented, and it was worth it for the way Mattias perked up, all hopeful eyes and eagerness. " _After,_ " Adolf clarified, "after you've both had a bath, bette."

"Ja, Papa!" is the reply, and Mattias scrambled off with a handful of kitten, leaving a muddy trail down the hall. Adolf sighed and skirted around it to get to the back door, leaning out to peer disapprovingly at the man lurking on the porch.

" _Your_ son..."

"Jumped into the river after a half drowned kitten," Kalmenka agreed, sheepish, but the upward quirk at the edge of his mouth betrayed him. "And then came straight back here to ask his _Papa_ if we could keep it."

"I'm rubbish at authority," Adolf sighed. "And are we ever going to inherit a cat that isn't drenched wet before-hand?"

"Easier to get it out of the way first, I suppose," Kalmenka said, the grin bursting into full view. Adolf shook a finger at him sharply.

" _Two_ ," he said. "I draw the line at two, and that one stays out in the barn."

"Think Harr General's with you on that, so you've got the majority vote," Kalmenka replied, stepping into the door beside Adolf to eye the hulking form of their current cat who was balefully examining the wet floor with disdain. "Because I'm going to abstain this time. Papa's word goes."

"Remember what I said about authority?" Adolf asked mournfully. "I'm an easy mark."

" _I_ think it's sweet," Kalmenka replied, leaning in to brush a kiss across the other man's cheek. "I'll get the mop if you grab the broom?"

"Deal," Adolf agreed. "....what do kitten's eat?"


	11. Late Night

The window frame was tight and new; Kalmenka set his shoulder into it and pushed harder, succeeding in shoving it open a hand's width with a protesting shriek of wood on wood to let a breath of cool evening breeze in. He leaned his forehead against the glass, breathing in the greener smells of summer warmed woods and earth that trickled in to combat the overwhelming scent of fresh split lumber that permeated the house. It was pitch dark out, lit only with the pinpoint of stars, the moon barely a sliver somewhere to the back of the house that Kalmenka couldn't see. He hadn't lit a lamp or checked his watch because he didn't want to _know_ how late it was. The dry ache of his eyes and the sleepless itch beneath his skin were bad enough without empirical proof. It had been a long day and a longer set of weeks before that, and the night would march relentlessly into dawn whether he'd succeeded in getting to sleep or not.

He sighed, pushing away from the window, and leaned his head back to try to ease the tight knot in one shoulder. There wasn't a muscle anywhere that didn't ache; either house raising was twice the work that trench digging and marching had been during his years in the ranks or else he really was getting too damned old to do it all and be ready to go again the very next day. It wasn't as though there was going to be rest for the weary in the days to come, either; the main house and small, adjacent barn were finished - enough to get by, at least - but the fence around the pen needed finishing if they were ever going to let the goat off its lead, and there were hutches to be built and a veritable mountain of wood to finish chopping and an endless list of other things that Kalmenka had to keep reminding himself of every time he turned around. Worse, there was no horde of friends and relatives to help with it all any more, not since they had put the last of the well-wishers on the train that afternoon. Just himself and his boy, and a Luck cursed amount of work that wasn't going to wait when it was already shading into summer and would be autumn and winter before they knew it. As it was, he thought tiredly, they were going to be living mostly off of store-bought through the snows for the first year and it was going to cut hard into his savings on top of what the land and house had already eaten.

"Rot," he told himself sourly. "Now you're just borrowing trouble." It wasn't dire; there was family that would help if needed, no matter how it might burn in his throat to have to ask. Work was just work, whether it was for himself or in the _Wehrmacht_ ranks, and he'd rather the former than the latter.  It was just something he was going to have to remind himself of in the months ahead.

But there wasn't an item on the list that was getting him any closer to sleeping and the rest he needed. Turning, he threaded his way back through the dark to his bed. The frame was second hand, a gift from one of his uncles, the mattress fresh, and every bit of it smelled of sawdust and plaster as much as the rest of the house still did. The small breeze from the window didn't reach far enough and Kalmenka sighed again, falling back against the pillows. Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow they could open up every one of the windows all day long, doors too, and air the house out. And unpack. The meals wouldn't cook themselves, any more than the cursed fence was going to dig its own post-holes, and clothes worn during all the construction desperately needed washing… groaning, he scrubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow. Sleep. Sleep _first_. Lists tomorrow. Sleep _now_.

An uncertain time later, in the first hazy stages of drifting off, something, somewhere, in the house went _CRACK_.

He was up before he could even say what had jolted him there, hand scrabbling futilely over the sheets for the pistol that wasn't there, adrenaline flooding hot and cold all at once with the first barked words of a demand for report dying in his throat. _House_ , Kalmenka realized, slow and dizzy from the dregs of interrupted sleep. Just the house, one of the joins settling, the unfamiliar sound of wooden walls that he wasn't used to yet. All the same, he couldn't quite make himself lay back down, fingers clenched in the quilt as he sat and listened, _listened_ , ears straining in the dark for any of the tell-tale sounds that he had left behind on the front. 

"Stupid," he told himself, over the slow-cooling pound of his own heart. " _Gluckverdammt idiot_." He shoved the pillows back into place, kicked the blanket into order, and made himself lay down. The dark around him was full of gray on black shapes, uncomfortable and strange. He resolutely closed his eyes on it all. It was just a new room, the unsettled feeling that came with moving, nothing new. He'd make his peace with it soon enough.

He was just starting to drift off again when something else creaked, sharp and loud as a gun retort in the darkness, but hard on the heels of the noise as he bolted up again was a soft voice that drifted up from the stairs. "…Apa?"

His boy, sounding just as sleepless and spooked as he was, and Kalmenka could have cursed himself for a fool twice over not to have thought that the boy might be. "Right here, _Kind_ ," he called, and Mattias came creeping the rest of the way up the stairs, a pale smudge of face and sleep-shirt in the darkness, trailing the darker folds of his own quilt. 

Kalmenka flipped his own blankets back and the boy slid in beside him, all elbows and knees and a warm, familiar presence from every night that all too real terrors had chased the teen from his own bed and into his would-be father's. It was habit to smooth a hand over the too-thin ridges of the boy's back, circling a gentle thumb into the tight muscles of his hunched shoulders. Mattias curled into a rigid ball, the rumpled curls of his copper hair soot gray in the darkness against the lighter shade of the pillow. "Can't sleep," he admitted in a reluctant whisper.

Kalmenka ran his hand over the boy's hair, ruffling it slightly. "Ja," he agreed. "I know."

He could just make out the shape of the boy's face and the darker shadows of his half slitted eyes. "…Sounds like guns," Mattias mumbled into the pillow. Kalmenka bit back a laugh.

"Ja," he repeated. "I _know_."

He didn't need to make out details to catch the motion of the roll of the boy's eyes, accompanied with an exasperated huff of breath. "Not just me, then," Mattias confirmed sourly. Kalmenka ruffled his hair again.

"Na. Old habits die hard." He settled back against the remaining pillow, trying to find a comfortable position. "It's just the wood, _Kind_. New house, and all. You'll get used to it quick enough."

One shoulder rose and fell in lackluster teen agreement. Kalmenka gave it a last pat, then closed his eyes, determined to set a good example. It was hard, though, when the body next to him was a tight curl of tension, held too still to be relaxed or asleep. He tucked an arm around the boy's head so that he could rub a soothing circle over the tight shoulders, but after a few minutes he had to admit defeat. Sighing, he leaned up on one elbow, nudging the boy's shoulder. "Na… light the lamp?"

Mattias made a sound that could have been either protest or agreement but a moment later the wick of the lamp flared on a skittering breath of equation, the flame sparking to life. Kalmenka, eyes already squinted tight, blinked past the sudden light until the room resolved back into the shapes of wall and peaked ceiling and crates, the unfamiliarity chased away with the darkness. Giving the boy another quick pat of approval, he tossed the covers back and slid out of the bed.

Mattias leaned up on his elbows, watching with a frown as Kalmenka dug his old field pack out from where it was stuffed between two crates. "Apa?"

"Just looking for something, _baba_ ," Kalmenka replied, digging through the contents by feel. "And since I think your Onkel Jann threw this together for me, and the bastard packs like a magpie's nest, it ought to be right about… mph… _there_." Working his hand free, he sat back on his heels and triumphantly displayed his prize. His boy's frown grew, if anything, even deeper.

"… _Socks_?" Mattias asked in disbelief.

Chuckling, Kalmenka crawled back onto the bed. "Ja, that too," he said, and unrolled the balled socks onto the covers. Two half lengths of fat, sturdy, beeswax tapers fell out. "There they are," Kalmenka declared, satisfied. "Keeps them from breaking, most of the time." Scooping one up, he reached past Mattias to hold the wick to the little lamp set on the bedside table, waiting until the candle caught before leaning in to blow out the lamp. The resulting light was softer, warm yellow and gently flickering, as he carefully dripped a puddle of wax onto the table top and pressed the butt end of the taper into it to hold it fast. He waited for the flame to steady before letting it go, flicking his fingers quickly over the wick. 

Settling back down on the bed, he tugged his son closer, prodding the boy to roll over until the boy's back was pressed to his chest, curls of his hair tucked underneath Kalmenka's chin. "There," he said, dropping a kiss onto the top of the boy's head. "Just like Solstice, ja?"

Mattias shrugged a little, squirming, but Kalmenka could feel the tension draining out of the boy's shoulders. "Never did Solstice," he confessed quietly. "Not proper. Papa told stories but Mama… Mama was too sick. And she worried about the candle."

Kalmenka tightened his arms around the boy, hugging him close. It was matter of fact when the boy said it, only the occasional falter giving him away, but Kalmenka knew the pinched look of his face when he spoke about his blood family well enough to imagine it. There were hundreds of orphans scattered across the eastern front, he had seen them by the scores when he marched with the ranks, but this was _his_ boy and his alone. "Well," he offered, softly, "this is close enough to what your Tante Sóphie and I used to get up to on Solstice night." He pressed another kiss to the boy's hair and cleared his throat. "Our Apa wasn't much of one for stories, but he had a good voice when he wanted to use it. Our Anya used to say that's why she went with him. Can't say as I inherited much of it, but let's see… There was one…"

It was an old memory, from when he had been younger than the boy he held, but he'd heard the tune as near as the month before, crooned by his sister as she rocked her youngest to sleep. He hummed it first, softly, trying to recall the words before he cleared his throat again and fitted words to tune. " _A juhásznak jól megy dolga, egyik dombról a másikra…_ "

His boy didn't speak Magyar, born in the northern Polen province to a couple long dead, a pretty woman who had passed her copper curls on to her son and a man who had, as far as he'd been able to piece together, been as fair and golden as the entirety of Kalmenka's family was decidedly not. They were opposites to look at, dark and swarthy to pale freckled and ginger, but it was _his_ shoulder his boy's head rested against and _his_ son who breathed out, slowly relaxing, and let his eyes close as Kalmenka quietly hummed one of the lullabies his own father had sung years ago. 

The candle flame danced gently, softened shadows swaying. Outside the night was shading into the first deep blues of the coming dawn but it wouldn't, he thought, hurt to rise late just _one_ day. Kalmenka closed his eyes, pressed his cheek to his son's hair, and started the second verse. 

" _Ha megúnja furulyáját…_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A Juhásznak Jól Megy Dolga](http://home.planet.nl/~nickl001/a-juhasznak.html) is an old Hungarian folk song that is alternately a children's song, or, if you're lucky enough to find a _good_ version of it, a lovely instrumental piece for two fiddles. Alas, my Google-foo was not that good. =P


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